The White House said Monday that “victory” is not the goal of Democratic proposals to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq because those proposals are “simply based on timetables.”
“The goal of many of those [proposals] being debated in the United States Senate and the United States House was not victory, but withdrawal,” White House Press secretary Snow told reporters.
“That has never been this administration’s position,” he continued. “What we have said is, victory is the goal.”
Snow was referring to various Democratic withdrawal proposals, several of which were recently defeated in the Senate.
These included a measure by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts to withdraw all troops within a year and a less defined “redeployment” proposal by Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
“Whether you call it a phased withdrawal or whatever it is, you move troops out according to a schedule,” Snow said. “There is no discussion of conditionality in some of those resolutions. Instead, they’re simply based on timetables.”
Snow’s remarks were called “preposterous” by Phil Singer, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
“As long as the White House focuses on playing politics instead of getting the job done in Iraq, the status quo is going to remain in effect,” he told The Examiner. “They are essentially making the argument to elect more Democrats in November.”
Singer said the goal of Democratic proposals for withdrawal was to encourage Iraqi security forces to shoulder the burden of defending their fledgling democracy.
“That’s the whole point of what the Democrats were saying,” he said.
But Snow said redeployment cannot be driven by the calendar.
“You do withdrawals only consistent with conditions on the ground,” he said. “One debate was based on a calendar, the other was based on conditions on the ground. And I dare say there’s a very significant difference between the two.”
